The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1887-02-25
LAUNDERING BY WIRE.
ERRORS WHICH BRING ANNOYANCE,
AMUSEMENT OR LOSS.

Blame Which Properly Belongs to Il,
Opcrators-How Long Circuits an
Weak Currents Play tho Mischief
Blunders OF bad Writing.
Many quaint stories arc related Of til
peculiar mistakes made by printers in set
ting type. "The intelligent compositor'
has become an expression of satirical re
proach in newspaper Offices, and blunder
are naturally shouldered upon him, no mat
ter by whom made. 1t is not alone in TIL
composing room that ridiculous errors occur
The telegraph Office is one Of the most fruit
full fields for what are termed "bulls' il
telegraphers' nomenclature, that is error
made in transmitting messages, whereby
they are rendered meaningless, or, as some
times occurs, serious subjects are trans
formed into jokes.
There are very good reasons, no doubt
for some Of the mistakes recorded agains
telegraph operators. There are no excuses
no good reasons, for others. Some are the
result of sheer stupidity, ignorant operators
being set to do work requiring not alone
skill in manipulating key, but intelligence
behind all. No doubt poor penmanship is
responsible for tho errors of the telegraph
as it is for the plumbers of the composing
room. The operator who reads "hearse''
for horse may have had his copy written by
the same editor who dashed OFF a criticism
on "Girohe Girofa," and who was dumb
founded to find that the compositor had
made it 'Snifile Snoffle." Yet it does not
always follow that this is the case, for a
telegram has been known to be transmitted
eyes, when the copy made it "No," with
copper plate or poster type distinctness.
WEAK ELECTRICAL CIRCUITS.
Long and weak circuits (electricaD are
also indirectly responsible for mistakes,
even though competent and careful oper-
ators may preside at both ends Of the line.
Letters composed entirely Of dots are often
metamorphosed an being received as an
i, for instance, the second dot of which the
is composed becoming attached to the fol-
lowing letter and completely changing the
photography; or an may turn out an
and combined, the dots becoming separated
through faulty working of the electric cur
rent, thus "falling out, !" as the telegrapher
explains, or elsa running together. Either
cause will alter letters, and unless the receiv-
ing operator is exceptionally careful and
quick to guess the meaning of "bulled"
words he may perpetrate errors which will
cost him salary as well as reputation.
AS has been mentioned above, long cir
cults and weak electrical currents frequently
play the mischief with dots and dashes.
They "fall out" as the operators say, van
ish or commingle, until, oftentimes, two
or more letters are blended Or as with short
letters fail entirely to go through. This
might account for Transforming "baseball'
into "baz BAN gag" where and g and II
are liable to be misunderstood for z and m.
Another, with which many expert oper-
ators are familiar, is the old time ''Cog hog.
Jags is not 100," when it was intended that
the recipient should understand he was to
"Come home. James is not WE'LL" Here
the receiving operator pobably has COM
mitted the old error of reading (by sound)
for me, the signs for which are quite SINH
lar, while "well, - if not carefully read (by
sound, is liable to be transformed into
100" Of course, no careful operator
would permit such perversion of words to
leave his hands; still such messages have
been sent out no doubt TO thd great Bewil
derment Of those for whom they were in
tended,
"Whcn the swamows hogward fly" was
what a careless ''plug" operator made OF
the familiar quotation which came to him
one night in special telegram to New
York paper. If he read the paper next
day, he was no doubt surprised to discover
that it had been turned by the careful tele-
graph editor into "When the Swallows
Homeward Fly" It must have been the
same telegrapher who made John Howard
Payne's beautiful lines read, clog, swot
Hog, there's no place like hog"
1t would appear to be impossible to turn
To,t -
yet instances of this kind are by no means
rare. They are the result, no doubt, of alb
sent mindedness, the sending operator, per-
haps, being engaged in an interesting con-
versation with some associate in his Office,
as not infrequently happens, as he ticks off
the letters which entirely change the mean
ing of some very important business mes
sage. Another example of carelessness was
in message sent from San Francisco to a
lady in New York by her husband, who in
endeavoring to advise her laconically and
cheaply as to what she should do about |
joining him, wrote in the blank, ''Do moth
ing about furniture This was turned
into ''Do nothing without furniture" and
the result was the recipient, satisfied she
was to take furniture with her, invested |
81 900 in household goods, to discover later
on that they were not wanted. AS a conse-
quence suit was brought against the COM
pany.
BLUNDERs OF BAD WRITING.
Blind writing is responible for many of |
the blunders made in sending messages, as,
for instance, ''Mother is very well, d" when
in reality ''mother" was livery ILL.,"
Mother died to-day went through from a
southern office and was received at New
York weather bad to-day" There may
be some excuse for confounding weather
and mother from similarity of tho Morse
sounds mo and wea, but no explanation of
this kind would account for misleading
''bad'' for "died'
"Send check this afternoon" has been
made to read "Send chase this afternoon"
your bacon" has become "Your banker"
and "Salmen received has been metamor-
phosed into ''Balloon received. " "Send no
more" was wired by commission MGR
chant to party from whom he was receiv-
ing large quantities of produce for sale, and
It put the recipient to much inconvenience
and eventually subjected him to considerable
loss, for the message as he received it read,
Send on more" and he exerted himself
accordingly to meet the demand.
When "The Mikado' was produced for
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